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Reichert Says About 15 Republicans Will Oppose TPP Over Tobacco

December 14, 2015

Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA), the chairman of the House Ways & Means trade subcommittee, warned Thursday (Dec. 3) that securing congressional passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement will be more difficult than the winning approval of the fast-track bill in June, in part because at the moment roughly 15 House Republicans who voted for fast track would oppose TPP over its treatment of tobacco.

Reichert, who spoke during a meeting of the President's Export Council (PEC), flagged the tobacco issue as one of three problems that members of Congress have with TPP, the others being the term of intellectual property (IP) protection for biologic drugs and “localization issues."

The latter refers to the fact that TPP does not ban governments from imposing requirements that financial services companies store data on servers within their territory, an omission which has raised the ire of U.S. financial services firms.

“Each side of the aisle has its issues,” Reichert said. “TPP is going to be harder [than fast track] ...We're going to lose about 15 votes on the tobacco issue on the Republican side."